Motor vehicles, such as passenger cars, trucks, busses, fleet vehicles, etc. are widely used and knowing the locations of such vehicles is often desired. For example, should a vehicle be stolen, it would be beneficial to know the vehicle's location so that authorities could be promptly and accurately directed to retrieve the vehicle. Indeed, the tracking system could plot the getaway path of the thief.
For a company with hired drivers, it may be desirable to know the driver's whereabouts during the course of the day. Similarly, a rental car agency or other fleet operator, for example, may wish to know the whereabouts of its fleet of vehicles.
It may also be desirable to track the location of a vehicle as it is used throughout the course of a normal day. For parents of younger or older drivers, for example, knowledge of the vehicle's location may provide some assurance that the driver is at designated locations and following a prescribed route.
A number of patents disclose various systems and approaches to tracking vehicles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,844 discloses a tracking system including a control center and a mobile unit installed in the vehicle. The mobile unit may send security warnings to the command center via a wireless transceiver. Position information for the vehicle is determined using a GPS receiver at the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,515,043 discloses a similar system which may send one or more preprogrammed telephone messages to a user when away from the vehicle. The user may remotely access location information or cause certain commands to be carried out by entering a personal identification number (PIN).
The widespread availability and use of the Internet has prompted a number of vehicle tracking systems to also make use of the Internet. For example, TelEvoke, Inc. proposed such a system in combination with Clifford Electronics. The system was to provide notification, control and tracking services via the telephone or the Internet. Users could be notified via phone, e-mail, or pager of events such as a car alarm being triggered. Users could control the vehicle remote devices via phone, web, or PDA such as unlocking car doors. Additionally, users could track TelEvoke-enabled vehicles on the Internet or via the telephone. An Internet map could be viewed by the user showing the actual and prior vehicle locations. TelEvoke offered its services via a centralized fully automated Network Operations Center. To reduce the communications costs, it was proposed to use the control channel of the cellular telephone network.
There are, of course, a number of vehicles which come from the manufacturer with some form of security system already installed. In addition, a number of vehicles are also equipped with aftermarket security systems. Many conventional vehicle tracking units may not be readily installed in vehicles, particularly those vehicles already including a vehicle security system. In addition, complexity of installation may significantly increase the system costs.
A number of patents disclose various security and control systems that address data bus interoperability. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,719,551, assigned to Omega Patents, LLC, the assignee of the present invention, discloses a vehicle security system for a vehicle including a data bus connecting a plurality of vehicle devices. A signal enabling circuit enables the alarm controller to operate using a set of desired signals selected from a plurality of possible sets for different vehicles. U.S. Pat. No. 6,011,460, assigned to Omega Patents, LLC, discloses a similar system where the set of desired signals from the plurality of different sets of signals for different vehicles is obtained, such as by connection and communication with a downloading device. Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 6,756,885, also assigned to Omega Patents, LLC, discloses a multi-vehicle control system whereby a multi-vehicle compatible controller stores a set of device codes for a given vehicle device for a plurality of different vehicles. Device codes are read from the data communications bus, and a match between a read device code and the stored device codes is determined to provide compatibility with different vehicles.
Unfortunately, such advanced techniques for dealing with multiple device codes for a vehicle having a data communications bus have not yet been developed for vehicle tracking units.